Far Left and Far Right in Europe Still Backs Putin but for Very Different Reasons, Makarkin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 14 – Many on the right and on the left in Europe who supported Russia, often against their own government and national interests, have stopped doing so in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s aggressive war in Ukraine, but some on the extremes left and right still back Moscow but for radically different reasons, Aleksey Makarkin says.

            The difference in the reasons for the support of these groups is critical and highlights the advantage the Putin regime has in not having a consistent ideology which might attract one or the other of these wings of the political spectrum of European countries, according to the Moscow commentator (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=63C163256BB17).

            “It is possible to say,” Makarkin says, “that if the extreme left see in contemporary Russia the heir of the USSR [whose aspirations for social justice attracted the left in the past], then for the extreme right what is important is historical Russia [the core meme of Putin’s propaganda].”

            The two things the extreme left and the extreme right in Europe have in common is hostility to the mainstream political forces of their own countries and their lack of any real political influence, however much Moscow may try to present them as being more important, a boost that both likely welcome as well, the Moscow writer suggests.